


Bright as Moon (Dark as Night)

by Evil_Little_Dog



Category: Labyrinth (1986)
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Background Relationships, F/M, Kidnapping, Mental Coercion, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-27
Updated: 2020-12-27
Packaged: 2021-03-10 18:01:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28361352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Evil_Little_Dog/pseuds/Evil_Little_Dog
Summary: If Sarah won't come to him willingly, Jareth will find another way to bring her to the Labyrinth.
Relationships: Hoggle & Sarah Williams, Jareth/Sarah Williams, Ludo & Sarah Williams, Sarah Williams & Toby Williams, Sir Didymus & Sarah Williams (Labyrinth)
Kudos: 10
Collections: fandomtrees





	Bright as Moon (Dark as Night)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [perkyplum](https://archiveofourown.org/users/perkyplum/gifts).



> Jim Henson/The Muppets/Disney, et al own the rights to this. I'm just playing paper dolls with the characters.

A king is a king, no matter what realm. 

Sarah's friends, her _protectors_ , Hoggle, Ludo, Sir Didymus - they were strong but a king's might is stronger still. And despite their protests (vocal, physical, even), Jareth swept them away with a toss of his long-fingered hand. 

"I shall have what I want," he told them. "And, since the Bog of Eternal Stench suits you, I'll place you somewhere else." The oubliette would do nicely. Dark, forgotten. 

That Sarah managed to escape the oubliette was of no consequence. These three and the slobbering dog would not outwit the Goblin King and their 'rescue' would be in the hands of the young woman they loved. 

It would appeal to her sense of fairness, Jareth knew, and would also get him what he wanted - Sarah, beside him as the Queen of the Land of Goblins. Afterward, she could have her friends back - he would be magnanimous in her capitulation. 

X X X

Another Friday home from college for the weekend. Her father’s and stepmother’s anniversary took them out on a date. Another night of reading stories to Toby before putting him to bed. At four years old, her little brother was growing fast. Sarah felt she'd grown, too - though her classmates still thought her too preoccupied with fairy tales and fantasy worlds, she'd become a sought-after Dungeonmaster for LARP and D&D on campus. And though she was only starting her sophomore year, Sarah’s storytelling and artistic style had captured the attention of a small publishing house. A chapbook of her stories was scheduled to be released in the spring. 

Accomplished, bright, a bit of a dreamer - that’s how her professors described her. Her fellow classmates might agree. Her roommate frankly thought her crazy - “She’s always talking to herself when I come into the dorm and then there’s this flurry like she’s hiding something but there’s never anything there.” 

Of course, Sarah’s friends were there. Hoggle, Ludo, Sir Didymus and Ambrosius. 

Or they had been. 

She hadn’t seen any of them now for a few days. 

At first, Sarah thought it was because of the book - she had to do clean ups and edits on the art and stories and that took up all of her spare time. Then there was the project for Theatre Studies with Jamal and Esra. Still, she thought she would’ve caught sight of Didymus’s fluffy tail or Hoggle’s worn cap or, well, just Ludo, who was simply terrible at hiding. 

Figuring she’d have a chance to catch up with them at home, Sarah could hardly wait for Toby to go to sleep (her little brother had screamed the one time he’d seen Ludo and while Sarah had managed to calm him down, Ludo was so hurt he wouldn’t come around for nearly two months afterward). But after settling Toby, and settling in herself with cookies and tea and some homework while she waited, Sarah realized more than an hour had passed and her friends should’ve been here by now. 

She went to the window and looked out at the night. The sky was clear and, despite the glow of light pollution toward the downtown area, still fairly dark. The gibbous moon hung in the sky, wreathed by a faint ribbon of mist. Sarah glanced at the clock - ten minutes to midnight. With a frown, she whispered the three words that always brought her friends - and their friends from the Goblin Kingdom - “I need you. Hoggle, Ludo, Sir Didymus, I need you.” 

The moonlight swelled and brightened enough Sarah raised her hands to protect her vision. Her heart hammered and the hair on the back of her neck stood up. The night sky coalesced and changed into an owl at her window, an owl that somehow flew through the glass and around her room. 

Sarah ducked from one of the swoops of the silent bird. It banked and spread its wings and the wings became arms in a jacket the color of a foggy night and the Goblin King stood before her in the bedroom of her father’s house. 

Her heart beat like a rabbit’s when it spotted a predator but Sarah controlled herself, remembering her Public Speaking and Theatre classes. She stiffened her spine and straightened her shoulders and faced Jareth with as much strength as she could muster. “I didn’t invite you here.” 

Jareth offered a faint smile with just a hint of fang. “You said you needed someone, my dear Sarah.” He twisted his hand to indicate himself. “Well. Here I am.” 

“You aren’t who I called for.” 

“No.” He looked around the room as if curious. “My my. You’ve grown but your room seems to have remained the same.” He poked at a marionette, making it shiver in its strings. “Trapped in your childhood, Sarah?” 

She swallowed down the jolt of fear. “No. This is all stuff, nothing important.” She’d learned that years ago. 

“Yes, it is relationships which remain important.” Jareth faced her again. “Isn’t that so?” 

“Ye-es.” Sarah drew out the word. Her stomach seemed to sink in her body. “What did you do to them?” 

Jareth cocked his head, bird-like. “Do? To whom?” 

She clenched her hands into fists to hide their shaking. “My friends.” She fairly spat out the words. “You know who.” 

Appearing to ponder over her statement, Jareth laid one finger against his check. “Your friends?” He repeated as if unsure of whom she spoke. “The grumpy gnome, the bedraggled knight, and the,” here Jareth swept out his hands as if at a loss for words, making the lace at his cuffs flutter. “Large thing that can call rocks?”

“Hoggle. Sir Didymus. Ludo.” Sarah said their names tightly. “You know who they are, you know every subject of your kingdom. What.” She took a step closer to him. “Did.” She raised her chin. “You.” She snarled. “Do.” 

Jareth smiled in the face of her fury. “Why, what every good king would do to a subject or subjects who are disobedient.” His mein swept from amusement to rage. He towered over Sarah, a foul, cold wind swirling around the room, tossing his lace, his hair, slapping her in the face and sending her staggering. “I punished them!” 

Sarah blocked the wind with her hands, struggling to see. “They did nothing wrong!” 

“Didn’t they, Sarah? Didn’t they?” He stood in front of her, barely a hand’s breadth away. The wind slapped his lace and trailing sleeves against her. Her hair swept across her face and she dragged it away. “My subjects left their kingdom, left me, over, and over, and over again!” The wind stopped abruptly. Sarah stumbled at the loss of pressure but straightened up again, the better to face the king’s rage. “They left me for you - not just your little friends.” The last word came out like an epithet. “My whole kingdom flocks to you, little chicks to gather under your wings and I will no longer stand for it!” 

From the hall, Sarah could hear Toby calling for her. She had to ignore her little brother. Again. “They are my friends,” she said, making her voice as firm as she could.

“Yes, I am well aware of that.” Jareth turned away from her to stalk across the room. It was too small for him, Sarah thought wildly, he needed much more space to emote. What would the Goblin King be like on stage? How much scenery would he chew up and spit out? And she swallowed that thought and the horrific giggle that nearly escaped her as Jareth spun back around. “And because they went against me, your friends are being punished as ringleaders.”

“Ringleaders?” Sarah’s brain stumbled over the word. 

“Traitors to my kingdom.” Jareth whispered the words as he walked past her, circled behind her close enough to touch. “I’ve punished them and put them someplace no one will ever find them. Their names will die out like their dreams in a hole of forgetting. Forever.” 

“The oubliette.” She gasped. 

Jareth smiled at her as if she was a slow student finally catching on. 

“They don’t belong there. You know that!” 

“Do I, Sarah?” 

She stomped up to him, just keeping from grabbing his jacket in her fists and shaking him. “You have to set them free. I...I’ll ask them to stay away.” 

Affecting boredom, Jareth turned his face away. “Blah blah. We both know how loyal they are to you. Why, it would fairly kill them to be sent away from you.” 

“There has to be another way.” 

The predatory smile he gave her sucked the air from Sarah’s lungs. “Oh, but there is.” 

She swallowed though there was no moisture in her mouth. “What is it?” Courage flooded through her again. “I’ll take on your labyrinth, your goblins, you, to release my friends.” 

A perfectly arched eyebrow rose at her words and the curl of Jareth’s mouth made Sarah second-guess what she’d said. “I accept your proposal, Sarah. And as recompense, will release your friends to be your guard.” 

“What?” 

Jareth wrapped an arm around her waist. Sarah froze for a second - had she ever touched the Goblin King except in that strange, drugged dream? Had she realized his body pressed to hers would make her own flush hot as fire then cold as winter snow? “My kingdom has long desired a queen, my dear Sarah.” His breath ghosted over her face. “And it, and I, have chosen you.” 

“No.” She struggled against the iron band of his arm. 

“Come with me, Sarah.” Jareth almost whispered the words, forcing her to strain, to lean up toward him to hear. “Be my queen and your friends shall be set free.” 

Sarah stared into Jareth’s bi-colored eyes. Something rose in her, clarifying as cold, clear water dashed against her face. Fairy tales and fantasies, the loss of her mother, the rescue of her brother, every step she’d ever taken, it all led to this. 

Standing on her toes, Sarah pressed her lips to Jareth’s, the frost taste of his mouth, the moonlight scent of him flooding her senses. “I accept.” 

X X X

The disappearance of a college girl from her own home was something that frightened the city, despite the note she’d left behind which read, “I’m safe, I love you, this was my choice.” Her chapbook became famous because of her notoriety, selling out and being reprinted multiple times with the Disney Studios taking an interest in the story. 

Her father and her stepmother bore her loss as stoically as they could while her little brother couldn’t understand why his sissy left him. But he was young, and eventually, his memories faded until they were as worn as the toys he’d played with when he was young. 

Though Toby never saw them, he had shadows - little furry things with big eyes and clawed fingers, or little bald things that looked sleepy, or, sometimes, when he was outside, a peculiar red fox with an eye patch, or even the rocks themselves. And sometimes, rarely, a fierce hawk would come and perch in the tree outside his bedroom window, peering in until the lights turned out. 

Then a barn owl would join the hawk and guide it home, back to the kingdom of the labyrinth, back to the Goblin City, back to the thrones they shared and the subjects she - and he - loved. 

For a king is a king, no matter what realm. 

But a queen can rule a king.


End file.
